Customer Education

In the District of Columbia, you are required to have three photos for an initial application for a home improvement salesperson’s license and two photos for a renewal application. Although we have never been asked for more than two for any of our clients, we recommend going armed with the right number of photos.

Your application will be deemed deficient if these photos are not included. To avoid processing delays and possible late fees stemming from this deficiency, we recommend using a professional passport photo service.

Taken with a neutral facial expression (preferred) or a natural smile, and with both eyes open

While we recommend you use a professional passport photo service to ensure your photo meets all the requirements, you may take the photo yourself. Hand-held self-portraits are not acceptable. Photos must not be digitally enhanced or altered to change your appearance in any way. If you take the photo yourself with a digital camera, thedigitalimage must adhere to the following specifications:

The image dimensions must be in a square aspect ratio (the height must be equal to the width). Minimum acceptable dimensions are 600 x 600 pixels. Maximum acceptable dimensions are 1200 x 1200 pixels.

The image must be in color in RGB color space which is the common output for most digital cameras.

Photos can be procured at most CVS, Walgreens and WalMart locations as well as photo stores and US passport offices. Be sure to check with the location before you go to ensure that the equipment is functioning.

Just another step down the road to getting your DC Home Improvement Salesperson’s License!

The two year report is the continuation of your business registration in Washington, DC and must be filled out and filed every two years.

The paper copy of the form can be found here or you can fill out the form online. The fee for on time filing is $300 with a $100 late fee added in the event you do not file by the deadline (April 1st).

When you initially create your corporation, your first two year report is due the following year and is due every other year after that.

For questions about two year reports, DC filings or help with your paperwork, contact us.

All applicants for a Basic Business License for the Home Improvement Salesperson category must include an Affidavit sworn to before a notary public to that individual’s history for the past ten years. Unlike the criminal history report, this form is filled out by the applicant and then certified by a notary.

Unlike the criminal history report, which is required for new licensing and for renewals, the affidavit is only required the first time a license is procured. It is not required upon renewal of the license. This item is required for all home improvement salespersons whether they are associated with Home Improvement Contractor or General Contractor licenses.

Q: How can we use seminars to generate leads and gain clients? Can you give me advice on how to set them up and how to operate them?

Marcus H., Quality Home Improvements

A: Marcus: You are absolutely right to investigate this option! Seminars can be a great way to get leads for your business, but as many contractors have found, there is a lot of preparation and thought that has to go into them on the front end.

We currently have about a dozen clients effectively using seminars to generate leads for their businesses and, after fine tuning and testing, they all follow very similar formats. The following is information we compiled from them with their best advice on how to focus and launch your seminars.

Decide how often you want to offer seminars. The first step to planning a schedule for seminar offerings is to decide how many days each month and each year you want to devote to giving presentations. This will be dictated by the size of your territory and the number of communities in the area as well as your own schedule.

Determine, realistically, how often you want to give presentations and identify a corresponding number of communities. In order to become “known” in a community, you will want to give presentations at least twice a year on different topics. If you plan to give two presentations each month, you can, realistically, reach twelve communities each year. Obviously if you want to stick to your small town, twelve communities will be a stretch but in any suburb or metropolitan area, you will be able to carve out this number easily.

Define your ideal audience. Determining which communities you will target will depend entirely on your ideal audience. Decide whether you want to segment customers based on location, community organization or some other factor. Our two clients who offer weekly seminars, one in the Washington, DC area and one in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, both segment their communities based on public and private high schools.

Based on your ideal market and how you divide your communities, your seminars can be held in elementary, middle and high schools (public or private), country clubs, community organizations or even private homes.

While our clients started out thinking that local showrooms and cabinet shops were the best place to meet their customers, they have all since realized that the best place to meet with customers is where they already are or already plan to be.

Don’t shoot in the dark. Don’t be the spammy contractor who elbows their way into a community where they have no ties. Whether you get your foot in the door through friends, family or previous customers, having a connection within a particular community segment allows you and your prospective attendees to feel more at ease.

Narrow the topic. Suring each seminar, discuss one type of home improvement. Whether you go with kitchen remodeling, roofing or additions, make sure the focus is narrowed. When presenting to a community two or three times per year, you can vary the presentations that you offer but don’t overwhelm your audience.

Several of our clients recommend choosing the topic based on the time of year (additions in the early spring, roofing in the early fall and basement renovations in the winter).

Promote wisely. For every dollar you spend promoting a free seminar, the cost to acquire each customer rises. Use your resources within a community to have emails sent out to the community listservs, the school community and through invitations sent out by your connections within a community.

Create a short window for signups (1-2 weeks), offer a freebie upon signup and follow up before and after the seminar with email reminders. Promote via social media but be sure to make your event appealing to the community as a whole. Our clients have offered wine tastings immediately following presentations as well as other opportunities for community socialization.

Keep your presentation time to a minimum. Cover the topic thoroughly and succinctly and be prepared to follow up. As the presenter, be sure to ask for questions at the end of the presentation and make yourself available for questions after the presentation during designated social time.

Our clients strongly recommend making this a social activity within the community where your presentation is just part of a social event. You garner good will within a community and offer an enjoyable and memorable experience. This also allows you to get more people in the door.

Whether you provide material to potential customers or sign them up on the spot, be sure that you have a way to follow up after your presentation. Send each attendee (or couple) individual emails and be sure that you have permission to follow up with them moving forward.

Remember that your seminars may not convert attendees immediately but they are an important way for you to garner good will and build up a community around your business.

Every business owner wants to work for ideal clients, and remodelers are no exception. Some of my contractor friends have told me that, with a warm lead, they can close 80% of the projects they bid. Getting a warm lead makes all the difference.

Warm leads come in the form of referrals, from customers knowing you personally or from those who have identified you as an expert before reaching out to you. Now more than ever, homeowners are doing extensive research and they may come to you knowing that they want you as their contractor. If you are not getting enough customers through referrals, you can still drive eager customers to your door.

Podcasting is an effective way to establish your expertise in your niche. For those of you who are not familiar with a podcast, it is a digital series of audio, video or radio broadcasts that are typically in “episode” form and centered around a specific topic.

Identify Your Target Audience

Before beginning a podcast, you will want to ensure that you have a target market in mind to ensure that your content and style match what your ideal client wants. Customers who like simple do it yourself solutions on small projects will not be interested in the same things as the upscale client who wants to install a custom wine cellar.

Podcast Logistics

Some decisions about your podcast will need to be made before you begin.

How polished do you want to be? Some podcasts are studio produced masterpieces and others are recorded via Skype. Your target audience’s preference will come into play here.

Will you want to co-host with another business owner? Are you planning to do interviews or are you going to be covering specific topics? If you want to do interviews, the need for a co-host may be non-existent. You might bring in a plumber to discuss a certain topic one week and have a landscaper on your show the following week. This is all a matter of preference.

What length do you want your podcast to be? Shorter is usually better for podcasts and allows you to stretch a topic out into bite sized pieces. Most podcasts for the remodeling industry range in length from 10-30 minutes, depending on the format.

Recording and Editing Your Podcast

Recording and editing a podcast has never been easier. You can purchase a relatively inexpensive USB microphone for your computer, record directly into a free sound editing program (we recommend Audacity) and edit immediately. Even if you aren’t very tech savvy, audio editing software has become very user friendly in the past five years.

Posting Your Podcast

Once you have recorded your podcast, we recommend publishing using Blubrry’s PowerPress for your WordPress website which will create a running list, called an RSS feed, that will stream your podcast to anyone who subscribes as soon as you post an episode. If you do not have a WordPress site, there are a number of free services that will create an RSS feed for your podcast. If you blog, this will be especially easy.

Submitting your podcast to iTunes once you have an RSS feed is just a matter of clicking “Submit a Podcast” in the iTunes software and uploading the link to your feed.

For anyone who is not tech savvy, help can be easily outsourced on sites like Elance and Fiverr.

Once you have created your podcast online, you can publicize its existence on your website and via social media. Including a link to your podcast in your email signature has shown to increase podcast subscriptions exponentially.

Creating a podcast is a simple way for remodelers to fill their funnel. When done consistently, it will increase your company’s credibility, bring more warm leads into your business and help your customers in the process.

On Monday and Tuesday afternoon, tornados tore through the South leaving crushed houses, flipped cars and displaced residents in their wake. These storms have been devastating leaving at least 30 dead.

In the aftermath of these storms, the last thing that displaced homeowners need is to be taken advantage of by unethical and unlicensed contractors.

As a reliable business owner, your customers can count on you. Make sure they know that by helping them to weed out the competition. Download our printable PDF HERE or continue reading for the Top Ten Things Your Customers Should Know Before Hiring a Contractor. [Read more…] about Customer Education: Top Ten Questions